The invention relates generally to visual presentation systems, and deals more particularly with a technique for determining how long to present each visual slide or transparency.
For many types of presentations, it is desirable to employ visual aids. The visual aids may take the form of slides, images generated on a video display monitor, images generated by a video projector or transparencies which are displayed with an overhead projector. There are several previously known systems for controlling the visual presentations. A well known slide carousel can be filled with slides, individually displayed on a screen with a projector, and advanced or regressed at any time with a manual switch. The operator determines how long to present each slide. IBM Storyboard and AVC programs are used to define a list and sequence of video images and then display them. The Storyboard and AVC programs can automatically advance from image to image in the sequence according to display durations written in the program or can wait for a manual cue from the operator to advance. In the former case, the user defines the display duration for each image before presentation begins.
In the foregoing prior art, at some time a user determines how long to display each image. However, in many applications it is desirable to scientifically determine how long each image should be displayed.
Accordingly, a general object of the present invention is to provide a system which determines an optimum duration for displaying each of a multiplicity of images in a visual presentation.